Winter Holidays

Target’s online traffic continues to grow at double-digit rates, with mobile sales growing more than 100% for the holiday period.

Washington, D.C. -- Over 80% (84.2%) of retailers say their standard shipping deadline for guaranteed Christmas delivery will expire prior to Friday, Dec. 20, according to Shop.org’s eHoliday survey conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics. Free standard shipping offers will follow suit, as nearly three-quarters (74.2%) of retailers who already have or will offer a free standard shipping promotion say their promotion will expire on or before Dec. 20. (Shop.org is a division of the National Retail Federation.)

Los Angeles – More than half (54%) of shoppers believe the best holiday discounts will be in December and 83% will continue to comparison shop for gifts throughout the month. PriceGrabber has released results from its December Winter Holiday Shopping Survey, of 3,299 U.S. online shopping consumers, that shows 87% of consumers will conduct most of their holiday shopping in December this year (compared to 78% in 2012).

New York -- The initially predicted “super weekend” (Dec. 21 and Dec. 22) will now become a “monster weekend” for brick-and-mortar stores, according to RetailNext, whose analysts predict a low single-digit uptick in traffic for brick-and-mortar stores, which will translate into an estimated 5% sales growth this weekend, resulting from improved conversion. The impact of last weekend’s snowstorm, coupled with the online shipping cutoffs, makes this weekend for brick-and-mortars even more substantial.

More than half (54%) of shoppers believe the best holiday discounts will be in December and 83% will continue to comparison shop for gifts throughout the month, according to PriceGrabber’s December Winter Holiday Shopping Survey.

The survey of 3,299 U.S. online shopping consumers shows 87% of consumers will conduct most of their holiday shopping in December this year (compared to 78% in 2012).

Truly last minute shoppers will be able to visit the corner of happy and healthy this Christmas Eve and Christmas Day where Walgreens said most of its nearly 8,200 stores will be open.

The company, which features “at the corner of happy & healthy” as its advertising tag line, said most stores will be open until midnight on Christmas Eve and its roughly 1,600 24-hour stores would stay open around the clock. On Christmas Day, most of the company’s non-24-hour stores will be open from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m.

New York -- Beginning on Friday, Dec. 20 at 7 a.m., 37 Macy’s stores in select cities across the country including Macy’s Herald Square in New York City; Union Square in San Francisco; and State Street in Chicago, will stay open overnight for four days in a row of non-stop shopping until Christmas Eve on Tuesday, Dec. 24 at 6 p.m.

In addition to the 24-hour stores, mostly all stores nationwide, except furniture galleries and select locations, will offer extended hours each night until 2 a.m. through Dec. 23.

Austin, Texas - A majority of consumers (79%) plan to shop the end-of-year sales after the holidays are over. In addition, a new survey from RetailMeNot and The Omnibus Company shows that nearly half of consumers (42%) report that they typically end up returning at least some gifts they receive for the holidays.